


Battlefield

by uchiha_s



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Divorce AU, Endometriosis, F/M, Infertility, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 02:48:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17654588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uchiha_s/pseuds/uchiha_s
Summary: She starts it with a joke.“God, we might as well just start a family together,” she blusters, half-joking but of course not joking at all. “We both want kids and we both don’t care how. We’re both single. We’ve known each other all our lives. It’s like a movie.”–And that is how it begins. On this wet April evening, both of them hungover but filled to bursting with hope, Jon’s strong hand envelopes Sansa’s smaller one in a firm handshake.It’s an agreement between friends.This way, they both figure, nothing can go wrong.This way, it’s rational. Logical.Later, they will both laugh at their naïveté.[Or, Jon and Sansa, divorced, are tricked into going on a blind date together.]For goodqueenalys on Tumblr, who came up with the original idea.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AliceInNeverNeverLand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceInNeverNeverLand/gifts).



> This turned out more angsty and heavy than I ever intended but I tend to go in that direction so no one ought to be entirely shocked. Thanks to goodqueenalys for the original prompt...I do apologize for taking it in a very different direction.

At this point, Sansa doesn't even care if this man is her soulmate. She just wants something fun—and given the pain of the last three years, she is pretty sure the universe _owes_ her some fun.

The restaurant, picked out by Margaery who knows these things, is extremely chic—but it still feels like the sort of place that Sansa would have picked for herself, and for that she's grateful. It feels like a French _salon_ of the nineteen twenties, with elegant coffered ceilings; mismatched oil paintings of reclining women; elegantly tiled floors; and tiny, perfect chandeliers hanging over the tables. It feels like she has stumbled upon a secret place. It feels like she can be herself here.

Standing in the entrance, Sansa draws in deep breaths, bounces on the balls of her feet, and wonders for the thousandth time if maybe she's a tiny bit too dressed up for a blind date. But her closet full of beautiful vintage, hand-tailored dresses and glittering heels and evening bags has been calling her name, and she leapt at the opportunity to make herself feel beautiful.

It might scare him off—whoever he is, this blind date of hers. Whatever.

She somehow managed to scare off the most fearless man she’s ever known, so perhaps she's destined to be forever alone. Perhaps she's destined to be a fabulous spinster, with lovers in Paris and an excellent collection of furs (faux, of course; she's not a _monster_ ) and a driver and a well-stocked bar cart with rose-colored champagne flutes, and perhaps an affair with a handsome, besuited American man in the FBI—

Her imagination is running away from her again. She pastes on a smile, tucks her hair behind her ear—it's a fresh blowout, done at Shae's salon because she needed the confidence—and is pleased with the way her bracelet jangles subtly when it hits her earrings.

"Reservation?" the hostess, a young woman with a blunt fringe and heavy-framed glasses, intones boredly at Sansa.

"Oh, it's under Margaery Stark, but she made it for me. ...The other person might already be here," she hedges. It is ridiculous to be flustered but somehow she's already flustered, as if she were a teenager. "It's, um, a blind date," she admits. The hostess, annoyingly young and annoyingly cool, smirks at Sansa as though her skirt's caught in her knickers.

"No, you're the first to arrive. I'll seat you and you can start on a drink if you like," she says with an air of sympathy, like she feels sorry for her, like she is assuming Sansa will be stood up, and leads Sansa to a corner table.

And of _course_ Margaery got them the best seat in the house.

The table in the corner is more private than the others, next to a paneled-glass window beneath a tiny, peach-pink chandelier that drenches the table in a romantic light. Sansa resolves again to feel positive about this. This is a romantic place, romantic in just the sort of way she would like, and perhaps this _does_ have a chance of working out. Her outfit is fantastic, and she's having a thin day (whatever that means; she's old enough to know this is a ridiculous way to think, but old habits die hard), and she feels at home here, and by _god_ does the universe owe her something good.

She will feel positive about this. She _will_.

She settles in her seat, orders a French Seventy-Five—she knows it's a frivolous drink but she is feeling giddy, girlish, and hopeful—and checks her mobile out of habit. There are dozens of emails about her boutique (she runs a small but highly successful vintage boutique in Marylebone) and she scans them to pass the time. Business is never far from her mind, and ever since her divorce, she has perhaps focused on it a little too much.

It's seven, now. _He_ used to be punctual to a fault, militaristic in his timing, while she has always been early. Perhaps this man will be late, and she tries not to think about how that will be a clear indicator that things won't work. She is going to keep an open mind, dammit. At her age, she can hardly afford to be picky—and yet, she cannot help but think that at her age she _ought_ to be picky. She knows who she is, and she knows who she wants.

There's a lump in her throat and she swallows it, and tries not to think about _him_.

What if you already know who you want—you just can't have them? What are you supposed to do then?

She doesn't want to seem desperate, so she tries not to stare at the entrance to the restaurant. She wants to seem cool, self-possessed, and detached. She wants it to seem like this blind date means nothing to her; she wants to seem like there are dozens of men chasing after her and if this man wants her he will have to _get in line_ , behind a dashing besuited American FBI agent— _okay, get a grip, Sansa_.

So she stows away her mobile and tries not to freak out about the fact that she has somehow become a thing that she never, ever thought she could possibly be: a childless divorcee in her late thirties. A slim, dark form in her periphery enters the restaurant and her heart seems to burn a hole in her chest. It reminds her of _him_ —oh, god, she will _not_ think of him; not _now_ —so she stares resolutely ahead, clutching her French Seventy-Five with shaking hands. At least they're manicured.

She senses a figure approaching, and her heart shudders and fails. She swallows, tosses her hair, tries to seem nonchalant and oblivious, but she's too tense and she knows it.

And then she hears it: the softest but deepest voice, the voice she has come to despise and the voice she has always adored, the voice that can trigger the most absurd bouts of rage and misery, the voice that so softly, so gently, convinced her on that one fateful night in the Larrik in Marylebone that they really could make it work—

"Sansa."

She doesn't look up right away, because she has to blink away tears of pure, unfiltered fury. Sansa swallows her rage. Ladies don't make a scene, after all. She slowly turns her head, and there _he_ is.

 _He's not even that tall_ , she seethes in a fit of pulsing fury.

Jon Snow, her ex-husband, is precisely the same height as her when she wears heels. It's been six months since she last saw him, but of course, he is as infuriatingly, perfectly beautiful as always: dark hair pulled back into a careless man-bun, not out of trendiness but out of his hatred for haircuts; the prettiest eyes and the prettiest mouth she has ever seen set against rough stubble and a hard jaw. Part of her cannot help but notice he looks stylish: he's wearing a suit jacket she made him buy, a charcoal that looks _wonderful_ with his eyes, paired with slim-cut jeans that she also made him buy. _He is wearing the things I picked out_ , she thinks again, reeling as she tries to process that information, weighed against the way he is currently looking at her: like he has never despised anyone quite so much as he despises her.

He is clenching his jaw, eyes filled with rage and hurt. She sees the muscle leap in his jaw. She has no right to be angry; he has all of the right to anger; but she's angry anyway.

"Jon."

In that moment, Sansa and Jon realize that they have been played.

**Three Years Ago - April, 2016**

It is Arya's birthday and they're all gathered together in a beer garden in Clapton. It rained earlier today, so the air tastes damp, and there's a soft glow about the faerie lights strung overhead. Everyone has had too much to drink, even Sansa. She didn't mean to, but she's had a horrid day, perhaps the worst, and Arya and Gendry have been coaxing her with unusual kinds of beer—chocolate and lemon-cake and even a funny anise one—and now she feels silly and sleepy, and that, of course, is when Jon Snow shows up.

Clad in dark jeans and a dark crewneck sweater and boots (she drunkenly marvels at how he makes basics look like couture, and he doesn't even know or _care_ ) Jon slips into the crowd, one lovely, strong, angular hand around a pint, holding it close to his chest as he weaves through groups of Arya's friends. She watches him scanning the groups, looking for someone he knows beside Arya's boyfriend, Gendry. His hair is free tonight from its man-bun, curls turned wild in the rain, and his eyes are shadowed with bruise-like dark circles.

He unexpectedly became the CEO of a rather successful startup a year ago, after the original CEO passed away, and it has consumed his life. He’s always been a hard worker, always putting in late hours just like her, always showing up punctual but exhausted to social events just like her. He does _something_ in network security but she's never learned the details. She has vague ideas of him hunched over a laptop late at night with black coffee, and it never quite fit how she thinks of him. If anything, he ought to be...a knight, or something. She can easily picture him in armor, bravely wielding a sword and saving the world, but perhaps working in network security is his way of saving the world. She doesn't know why, but the idea of him as a CEO makes so much more sense—though it seems to be draining the life force from him. He looks even paler and thinner than usual.

Jon and Sansa rarely talk, though they have known each other their whole lives. But tonight, armed with liquid courage and a certain hidden despair (she _won't_ spoil Arya's birthday with her own black, miserable news, she _won’t_ ), Sansa decides to talk to Jon Snow. She decides it when their eyes meet across the garden and something crackles in the air, though in the moment she ignores it.

It only looks like sexual tension because she's very drunk and very sad.

She tells herself this lie. She is a surprisingly good liar; she can almost believe herself.

"Jon," she calls across a throng of Arya's friends, and Jon looks visibly relieved to see a familiar face—even if it is hers; even if they've never exactly been best mates.

Somehow—later she will try to piece together how it happened—they find themselves on a wooden bench at the edge of the beer garden, shadowed by a honeysuckle bush, dizzy on the heady scent of damp honeysuckle and talking about life, though admittedly it's Sansa who's doing most of the talking.

"I really don't even care about the marriage bit," Sansa is rambling, and Jon is listening to her carefully, nodding in all the right moments, as the party rages on around them. "I mean, alright, _fine_. I _do_ care. I wanted to wear the white dress, and have dad walk me down the aisle—“

“—right—” Jon agrees, nodding, and she assumes he's humoring her because there's no one else for him to talk to, but she continues anyway.

"But I've always wanted children, you know? That's what I really wanted. And now, today—“

This is the painful confession; this is why she's drunk; this is what she cannot bear to tell anyone yet somehow she is baring this secret to _Jon Snow_ of all people, “—my doctor tells me that having children will be 'next to impossible,' whatever that means... And I just had to face the fact that Harry would honestly be a terrible father anyway, and .... I don't know what to do now. My clock is ticking, and I just...I'm so afraid that every year that I lose to trying to find the right person is just going to hurt my odds of being able to have children at all."

This is her most raw, most private confession. She has not even told Arya about the appointment that she had today; she has not told anyone. Her womb is basically inhospitable to a child, and she has suddenly come face-to-face with the truth that Harry, to whom she has given all of her adult life, would be an atrocious, resentful, irresponsible, selfish father and husband.

She chucked him today, without room for negotiations.

She would have thought he would fight harder for her, but he left all too willingly. Almost happily.

This too hurts.

This perhaps is why she has become drunk so quickly. "I have a hostile womb," she chokes. She feels Jon studying her. "I mean," she adds thickly, "maybe it's for the best. I have my business to think of. And it's successful; it's going _really_ well. So...maybe _that's_ my baby."

She risks a look at Jon, more conscious than ever that she was the one sibling of the Starks with whom he did not bond, more conscious than ever of the fact that she has always keenly sensed that Jon finds her frivolous. Jon is leaning an elbow on the table beside them, studying her. She watches him look down and fidget with his near-empty glass, watches him weigh his words. His hands, she notes, are beautiful.

"I know how you feel," he finally admits. The party fades, and Sansa turns to face him. Her knee brushes against his, and they both shift, muttering apologies. He avoids her eyes as his lovely mouth curves into a sardonic look, and he offers a half-shrug. "I mean—it's the only thing I've ever really wanted. I’ve always wanted a family,“ he admits suddenly, and her heart breaks. “I’ve always wanted to be a dad. More than anything. But then things didn't work out with Val, and then Mormont died and now somehow I'm a CEO—I still don't how the fuck that happened, honestly—and now I don't know how a family could even happen." He shrugs. "So...maybe I'm like you. Maybe my company is my family. Maybe I did become a father, in a way. It's just not really..."

"...What you had in mind," Sansa finishes for him, and he nods.

They are staring at each other. She had no idea that Jon wanted to be a father, but it makes so much sense that she wants to slap herself for not realizing it. She thinks of all the times she watched Jon with her brothers and sister—Arya, Bran, and Rickon in particular—and how caring, how gentle, how _loving_ he has always been, even in childhood. It was Jon who taught Arya to ride a bicycle; it was Jon who took Bran fishing; it was Jon who would go to the track with Rickon in the bitterly cold, damp mornings, armed with a thermos of black coffee and a stopwatch, timing Rickon's splits as Rickon prepared for cross country tryouts, and quietly encouraging him.

"You're meant to be a dad," she says, and it's not just the alcohol talking. Jon regards her. His grey eyes, usually so cold to her, are warm. Too warm. Heat prickles along her skin as his warm eyes ghost along her neck, back up to her eyes.

"Thanks. That means a lot," he says quietly. "I think you're meant to be a mum too. And...I think it will happen. You'll be a great mum."

He's always so serious. If she were younger, she would have tried to kiss him and tried to claim it was the alcohol's doing. But she’s too old to behave like a child, and so is he, so they share a private smile, and drink their beer, and watch everyone else from the sidelines.

"Everyone else complains about finding the right school, about having to rush home to their kid; everyone else dreads that… but that's what I want," she admits. "I _want_ that struggle. I _want_ to give up other things; I _want_ to make the sacrifice."

"Me too," says Jon. "I want to... take my daughter to ballet—“ The way he says _ballet_ is so self-conscious and sweet that she almost tries to kiss him again, but she fights down the urge. She’s not a child anymore.

“—and come up with Halloween costumes—” she sighs instead, picturing being bent over hand-sewn faerie wings, late at night.

“—doctor's appointments—” Jon cuts in.

“—sitting on the playground—” Sansa agrees.

“—stumbling over toy trains—” Jon supplies.

"Yes, exactly,” they say at once.

They fall silent. Somehow they get more beer. 

"I'm glad we're talking," Sansa says, and even in the low light she can see Jon is blushing. "It's nice. I didn't realize we had so much in common."

"Yeah," is all he says as he rubs his neck. There's a long pause and she can tell he is weighing his words again, so she waits. "Look, I dunno anything about all the ...womb...stuff...but maybe there's a way. And besides, there's always adoption."

And this moment, when he gives her this ridiculous hope and when their eyes meet in lines of electricity, of utter empathy and of one-mindedness, is when their idiotic, foolish, hopeful idea is born, though they don't tell each other just yet. Later they will each confess that this was the moment they thought of it.

Sansa scoffs, and spins her empty pint glass on the wet wooden picnic table beside them.

“No guy is going to want to deal with that. It might take years to get pregnant, and it will be expensive...I could do it myself, but I want..."

"...A family..." Jon finishes for her, and there's something in his voice that gives her pause. "There should be a family."

He swallows. His throat, she thinks, is lovely.

She starts it with a joke.

"God, we might as well just start a family together," she blusters, half-joking but of course not joking at all. "We both want kids and we both don't care how. We’re both single. We’ve known each other all our lives. It's like a movie."

Jon laughs softly but he doesn't agree or disagree, and she feels humiliated, rejected, and absurd. When Arya and Gendry burst in on their conversation, they are both relieved—and disappointed.

**Present**

"She's a redhead, too," Robb had said, so offhand. Jon had been suspicious, and now, standing in the entrance to La Belle Epoque, his suspicions are vindicated, though not in the way he would have ever expected—or allowed, had he known. "You love redheads," Robb had pointed out. Jon had not felt equal to pointing out that one of those redheads was Robb's sister; he's never expressly admitted his feelings for Sansa, especially not to Robb.

Yes, fine, they were married, but...that was _complicated_.

He is going to kill Robb.

He would know that fall of copper hair anywhere; it gleams beneath the absurd tiny pink chandelier above it. This place is so _utterly_ Sansa—the vintage French posters, the tiny pink chandeliers—that for a moment he has to marvel at Margaery's abilities. It is as if she designed a restaurant for Sansa, a place in which Sansa would feel comfortable enough to agree to a blind date.

"She's right this way, sir," the annoyingly young hipster hostess is saying, and now it's too late to back out. Against Jon's will he is being led by this bloody _teenager_ to his ex-wife, the woman he has loved in secret for more than half his life, the woman with whom he briefly thought he would get everything he ever wanted; the woman who broke him. And he's too tired to fight; today was an important meeting with investors for more venture capital and it was not a sure deal, and he's spent the last three months pulling all-nighters to help Sam and Pyp get their latest product ready in time for the demo... He has put his entire soul into his work, and it's no accident that this happened all because of _this_ particular redhead.

She looks tense, but she hasn't seen him yet so he has a blessed moment to try and collect himself before he is confronted with her, but he can't do it because he is blinded with rage and hurt. She _broke_ him, but he knows it’s his own fault, because of his cowardice, his selfishness, his overwhelming, secret desire… But it’s not fair, either. She didn’t _listen,_ she doubted him in his lowest moment… she _broke_ him.

And then she looks over her shoulder, and he blurts out her name, and everything in him breaks all over again.

**Three Years Ago - April, 2016**

Jon wakes up on the morning after Arya's birthday party with a throbbing hangover. He wakes up early, like always, and stares at his digital clock. He can hear the sounds of Dulwich waking up around him. It's the first night in a week that he’s actually slept in his own bed; usually he falls asleep in the office, on a makeshift bed of bubblewrap and his peacoat.

He had _the idea_ last night, and he hasn't been able to get it out of his head. He even dreamed of it: a daughter with Sansa's eyes, six years old and twirling about in a tutu, or whatever they're called. She would be named Lyanna.

He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. His own flat, a total shithole, unfurnished and poorly-lit, is terrible and empty and cold. As he stares at the ceiling, head throbbing and stomach churning, he can hear his mobile already buzzing with emails, emails about the company that he never intended on running, emails about the company that suddenly became his child when Mormont died of a heart attack, emails about the company that should have become Alliser Thorne’s.

 _It's just like having a child,_ he thinks humorlessly. _If I had a daughter or a son, they'd be waking me up right about now._ The difference is that the idea of a child leaping onto his bed, wanting to play 'Dinosaurs' or watch 'Barbie Princess' for the thousandth time, is _wonderful._

The difference is that he's always wanted a child, and he never wanted to run a company. He didn't ask to be CEO; he never even dreamed of it, but when Mormont died, Night's Watch found itself leaderless, and for whatever idiotic reason, everyone turned to him instead of Thorne. And then Thorne, the only one among them with any business experience, left in a huff, and now Jon has had to sacrifice everything because he cannot let this business fail, now that it is his.

In this moment, at five twenty-seven on a Sunday morning, still wearing his clothes from last night and his stomach gurgling, Jon must confront the fact that nothing about his life is how he ever intended for it to be. Whenever the adrenaline of trying to keep Night’s Watch afloat recedes, he is left with the hideous truth: he is miserable and on the brink of powerful, paralyzing unhappiness, and it’s his own fault.

He is a man of action if nothing else, and he decides, lying there, that he has nothing to lose by asking Sansa the thing that sprang to his mind last night. He has a powerful notion that he saw the same idea in her eyes, and that although she joked about it— _it's like a movie_ , she'd said—she might not have actually been kidding. So he finds himself googling her boutique. It's called _Lemons and Lovelace_ , and it's in Marylebone—of _course_ it's in fucking Marylebone—and, luckily, it's open on Sundays, starting at noon.

So he drinks coffee and takes paracetamol and waits for his stomach to settle, and showers, and cleans himself up, and puts on clean clothes, and he rehearses, pathetically, what he will say. The journey from Dulwich to Marylebone is expensive and time-consuming, but at precisely noon he is striding up the sidewalk to Lemons and Lovelace, hands shoved in the pockets of his ancient, worn peacoat, running through the points in his head as though this were a venture capital meeting.

 _I'm financially secure,_ he thinks, _even if my company isn't._ His boots hit the sidewalk with sure strides. _I think we're about to make it and by the time a baby arrives, I'll be ready to take a lesser role in the company. We know each other well, and we're already practically family. We trust each other._

He isn't exactly sure of that last point. He trusts Sansa—this woman who delights in wrapping presents, whose lovely eyes light up at the sight of puppies and babies, whose kindness seems boundless. Everyone trusts Sansa, and everyone likes Sansa. But he's not sure if she trusts him…and he’s not even sure if she likes him.

He can do this. He can do anything, he reminds himself.

The front of Lemons and Lovelace has a few mannequins dressed in vintage dresses, backed by a backdrop of palest-pink metallic streamers. Even from the sidewalk he can hear vintage music playing—it’s a record player, surely—and the silliest group of giggling girls he’s ever seen, who all have the same haircut, push past him to enter the shop. When the door swings open, he catches a flash of Sansa holding up a vintage dress for a customer, her lovely hair catching the light.

Okay, never mind. He can't do this.

What the _hell_ was he thinking? Was he seriously— _seriously?_ —considering asking Sansa to start a family with him?

He must be losing his mind. It's the lack of sleep, the stress, the unhappiness. He ought to see someone about this. Horrified with himself, Jon turns on his heel to stalk away from the shop—what a close _fucking_ call—when he hears his name.

"Jon?"

He pauses, then turns. And there she is: Sansa is standing on the sidewalk outside of her shop, wearing a floaty sort of blue dress that makes that infamous copper hair all the more vibrant, and she is smiling at him, and he ignores that tiny, dangerous voice that points out that he has loved her, _loved_ her, for years, for _years_.

No, he hasn't.

This is about convenience.

This is about having a common goal, and achieving it with someone he trusts and respects.

This isn’t about love, and he is not in love with Sansa, and he never has been.

...He is a terrible liar, even to himself.

"Um. Hi," is his brilliant reply. She beams.

"What are you doing here? Don't you live all the way in Dulwich? I can't even believe I'm seeing you in daylight. Are you _actually_ taking a day off—“

“—I came to see you," he blurts out. There's no use in lying, now that she's caught him. He is a terrible liar, after all. Sansa halts, staring at him. He can see her hair beginning to curl in the damp spring air. He does not want to kiss her. He does not. He does _not_.

_Coward, coward, coward._

He can't speak. He shifts, looks away from her. He hears her clear her throat.

"Um, why don't you come into the shop? It's cold out here, anyway."

He is ensnared; he can't back out now. Sansa turns to go into the shop, and for whatever fool reason, he follows her.

**Present**

"Now I know why Robb seemed so keen on me staying through the whole dinner," Jon says tightly, taking his seat across from her. Sansa is gutted.

"You don't have to stay," she says. "I cannot believe them."

“Actually, I do have to stay,” Jon replies acidly. “Robb told me he’d withdraw his investment in Night’s Watch if I left before eight.”

There is silence. Neither of them looks at the other.

"The house is finally on the market," she says now. "Just so you know. It just went up today."

Jon doesn't respond, so she looks up. He is staring furiously in another direction, working his jaw. Sansa thinks of the agony of watching the sign go up in the front garden, among the bed of roses, the roses they had planted together. _Their_ roses. She had hurried home and sobbed, standing in the kitchen of her new, unfamiliar flat; she had let out great ugly heaving sobs that left her head throbbing and her eyes puffy. She had had to hold frozen spoons to her eyes in preparation for tonight, and they still ache faintly.

"Right. Thanks for letting me know," Jon says brusquely, still not looking at her.

When they divided up the tasks involved in ending their marriage, she offered to handle selling their house—their beautiful, perfect, cosy, idyllic house; their dream house, the house they had got married in, the house where everything had happened, the house where he had first kissed her, the house where he had last kissed her; the house where they had first shared a bed after receiving that painful news... Crap, now her eyes are burning with the threat of tears again.

"I was going to email you about it," she reassures him, just for something to say. "I just...hadn't got round to it yet." In reality she had drafted perhaps a dozen emails and sent none of them. There's no etiquette book for emailing your ex-husband, who only married you to have a baby, that the house you bought together is now up for sale.

And then he finally, finally looks at her again. The waiter, a reedy-looking young man with too-sleek blond hair, is approaching them. Sansa doesn't know what to do. She cannot bear the idea of sharing an entire meal with her ex-husband—nor can she bear the idea of leaving without saying anything more, without settling things between them.

But she can’t take back what happened that night, and she knows when she meets Jon’s eyes that he’ll never forgive her for it, either.

It was always just an agreement, a contract between friends. Theirs was a marriage of convenience, a marriage to allow them to achieve what they both wanted.

In the beginning they had been so pleased with themselves: after all, isn't a passionless marriage the best marriage of all? Half the reason they had agreed to go through with it at all was that they naively thought that this—this animosity, this bitterness, this regret and hurt—could not possibly happen between them, since they were not lovers and never had been. When they had explained this to others, no one had seemed to find the idea quite as brilliant as they did, and now Sansa wonders if perhaps everyone saw something that she and Jon could not.

It had all seemed so logical, that day they had made the agreement.

**Three Years Ago - April, 2016**

Jon Snow is standing in her boutique's office, looking around uncomfortably, hands shoved in the pockets of his worn peacoat, hair wild and face drawn. He looks as hungover as she feels. Her stomach churns uncomfortably and there is a pulsing pain at her temples that the paracetamol has not done much for. She closes the door and turns to face him.

Neither of them knows what to say.

"Look," he begins, at last, and her heart is in her throat. He is looking down at the floor. "I know you were kidding, last night, about the whole having kids together thing, but—“

“—I wasn't."

The words are out quickly, and then they're staring at each other, each holding their breath, each afraid to speak and therefore break the fragile spell of hope, as delicate as spider's silk, strung between them.

He finally looks away again, his gaze settling on a pair of gossamer faerie wings hanging from the wall over her desk. He looks so uncomfortable in this world of feather boas and faerie wings and vintage, glittering clutches that she can't help but laugh, and then his gaze jerks back to her. She bites her lip as he rakes his hand through his hair.

"I don't know how to have this conversation," he says plainly.

"I don't, either."

They decide to get lunch at a cosy pub down the road, and so Sansa closes the shop for the hour, dons her yellow scalloped coat, and walks in awkward, hopeful silence with Jon, arms folded across her chest, heart pounding. Everything is surreal: the hints of blue sky, hopeful in that singular _London in springtime_ sort of way; the sounds of traffic; the feeling of Jon's arms brushing against hers every now and then as they walk.

They find themselves at the Larrik, amid dark sage walls, seated at a rickety table next to the hearth. Sansa orders a water with lemon and Jon orders a pint, and neither speaks except to order their lunch. After a while, though, the silence becomes unbearable. Jon sets aside his pint and rubs the back of his neck, a gesture that is as familiar to her as the back of her own hand, and her heart squeezes. He pinches the bridge of his nose, briefly. He seems like he's about to speak, but she can't take the suspense.

"I think we'd be good parents," she blurts out. He is studying her openly, finally, finally. "The more I think about it, the better of an idea it seems. I know we're not—you know, romantically involved, but somehow—“

“—it seems better that way," Jon finishes for her quickly. She nods, strangely lightheaded. "We can make rational decisions together. It would be about the kids, and never about us."

"Right," she agrees, leaning forward without realizing it. "And we'd still be able to give our children—“ she halts, sensing both the strangeness and inherent _rightness_ of the idea, watches Jon draw in a deep breath, his shoulders rising slightly, “—a family. Not that there's anything wrong with a single-parent household," she adds hastily, "but it'd be easier—”

“—you'd still be able to run your shop—“ Jon puts in, “—and I'd still be able to manage Night's Watch."

Their orders come and they stop talking as Sansa's strawberry salad and Jon's burger are placed before them, as though they are making clandestine plans, secret plans that even their waiter cannot hear. As soon as the waiter leaves, they lean forward again, forgetting their food. "And things are going well with the company," Jon continues. "I'll be able to take a step back, soon. So I'd be able to work remotely, and—and watch the child. Or children." His neck is flushed.

"And my shop's online bit is doing well. I'll be able to hire more help soon, to mind the shop," she adds.

This impossible thing suddenly seems real, and they stare at each other in shock.

It should not be this easy. "I told you a bit about my—my situation," Sansa continues now, stomach clenching. She looks down at her food. “I have endometriosis. So getting pregnant will be hard…but not completely impossible. So we could try artificial insemination, but we might have to—”

“—Adoption's good too," Jon says at once. "We can try both."

They plan for hours. Jon's pint disappears and he orders another, and then so does Sansa. The pub empties of the lunch hour, and then, as the lights turn on and the sky darkens, it begins to fill up with evening patrons, and they are still planning. It all falls into place so neatly that it seems like a sign from the universe. They are aligned on everything: how many children they will have, where to send them to school, where to begin their search for a home...

And that is how it begins. On this wet April evening, both of them hungover but filled to bursting with hope, Jon's strong hand envelopes Sansa's smaller one in a firm handshake.

It's an agreement between friends.

This way, they both figure, nothing can go wrong.

This way, it's rational. Logical.

Later, they will both laugh at their naïveté. 

 


	2. Chapter Two

**Past - May, 2016**

Jon is out with Robb and Gendry when he finally reveals their plan.

He and Sansa agreed that they'd do it this way. He will test out the idea with Robb and Gendry, and she will bring it up with Margaery and Arya. It seems important to socialize the idea with individual pieces of the Stark clan first, so that it comes as less of a shock to them as a whole.

Jon meets Robb and Gendry at the Red Lion in Mayfair, a convenient spot for Robb. They're at a standing table, and Robb and Gendry are laughing about something, but Jon is in a fog. This weekend, he and Sansa will begin looking for a house. His mobile has been buzzing with pictures of potential homes from Sansa all evening.

On his way to the pub, he saw a father carrying his toddler daughter in one arm, her sleepy, curly head on his shoulder, and lugging his briefcase in the other. He saw them and thought, _that might be me soon_ , and he still feels lightheaded, almost drunk.

He had almost given up on this precious, secret dream, and now he's getting it, in a way he never, ever imagined.

"You're quieter than usual, Snow," Robb observes suddenly. "Things okay with the company?"

He feels like he's been blasted with ice water. He clears his throat, his blood pounding in his ears, his tongue thick.

Now is the moment.

"Oh, yeah. Everything's going well. The thing is," he begins.

He's thought about it for days, how he'll tell them, but he still doesn't know, and now Robb and Gendry are regarding him, Robb's eyes wide and Gendry's eyes a little too shrewd for his liking. "Listen, Sansa and I are thinking of—“ he halts, watching Robb's eyes widen as Gendry takes a swig of his beer, “—well, we're thinking of having kids together. And, um, buying a house. Well, probably renting, truthfully."

Robb stares mutely, while Gendry chokes on his beer and has to turn away, face red, as he beats his chest and hacks up his beer.

" _Kids?_ " Robb finally asks weakly.

Robb has been his best friend for Jon's entire life. Jon does not know how to meet his best friend's eyes now. They are, he realizes, unnervingly like Sansa's eyes. He forces himself to meet Robb's eyes anyway.

"Yeah. Kids."

The silence is horrible, so he plunges onward. "We both have always wanted kids, and at Arya's birthday we were talking, and we realized we both wanted a family and that it was unlikely that we were going to meet anyone and—you know—fall in love, or whatever, any time soon. So we started talking about it, and the more we talked about it, the more sense it made."

He waits for Robb to point out that he and Sansa dislike each other—for that has been the perception all their lives, if not the truth—and he waits for Gendry to make a joke, but neither man speaks, or even laughs. They are both just staring at him.

He can only thank the universe that Theon couldn’t make it tonight. Theon would have something to say, and it would _not_ be very likely to be helpful. He kind of hates Theon, even if he also loves him reluctantly. "It makes good sense," he reiterates, feeling embarrassed. "We're not dating, and we—well, we never would—so this way it can't get messy. It makes sense for us financially, and for where we both are in our careers. It's what we both want. And we trust each other, and respect each other, but it'll stay clean, and rational, and straightforward. Because we're not—we're not in love, or anything."

"Right," says Gendry. "Not in love. Absolutely."

Jon looks to Robb. For once, his best friend's face, usually such an open book to Jon, is unreadable.

"You're the only person good enough for my sister," he says finally, quietly. "And she's the only person good enough for you. You'll be good parents together."

Gendry looks between Jon and Robb, and seems to sense something.

"Welp! I'll get the next round," he says loudly, his words going unacknowledged, and slinks off.

"Thanks," Jon says at last. "I'm glad you're comfortable with it."

"Comfortable," Robb scoffs. He shakes his head. “ _Comfortable._  God. Okay, Snow.”

"Look, it's the only way you can guarantee you'll get to both be godfather to Sansa's children and not want to kill her husband for touching her," Jon points out wryly. Robb arches his brows. Jon cannot bring himself to say, _because we’re doing artificial insemination_ , to Robb's face—for so many reasons—so instead he lets his words hang in the air, until their implication is clear. 

"I'd agree with you," Robb says, "if I believed you."

Gendry returns with another round at that moment, so Jon cannot ask Robb what he means.

* * *

Sansa has been under some sort of spell since that day they made their agreement.

"You're all...floaty," her assistant, Myranda, observes. It is Saturday evening, and she and Jon are going to look at a house together. She has dressed up for the occasion, in a lavender dress and a navy frock-coat and gingham heels, and Myranda's clever eyes do not miss it.

"Just looking at a house tonight," she says over her shoulder as she closes her laptop. Jon is due to arrive at the shop at six, and at precisely six on the dot, he arrives. He looks hassled, but there's a certain energy to him: the shadows beneath his eyes are not so pronounced, the whites of his eyes are bright, and he's standing straighter than normal.

He's happy, she realizes.

"I have a good feeling about this one," she says without preface as she bids Myranda good-night and leaves the shop. They fall into step on the sidewalk, headed for the Tube.

"It's in our price range," Jon agrees, "but it'll take some work. A lot of work, actually.“

"But that little garden in the back—“

“—It looks too small," Jon interrupts stubbornly, but even so, there's so much lightness to him, and to her as well. She cannot remember the last time that she was this happy. Even the damp fluorescence of the Tube glitters with magic. Their arms brush as they get on, and their legs bump as they lurch into motion.

"But it'd be a perfect place for birthday parties," Sansa insists, once the noise dies down a bit. She takes the printout from her navy satchel and unfolds it, and he leans in a bit to look at it with her. He smells good; she tries not to think about how good he smells.

"Yeah, and there's a park right down the road," he agrees. There's nothing about a park on the information she sent; he must have looked it up on his own.

Side by side they sit in silence, filled to bursting with joy.

It takes forever to reach the house, all the way down in Greenwich, but as they walk up the wet street in the dark, Sansa's heart swells. She resists the urge to clutch Jon's arm. That would be weird, especially because they are not in love. There is a sopping wet magnolia tree out front and the tiny yard is littered with brown magnolia petals. She can picture a garden full of roses at once. The house is on the end of the row, so it'll get more light than the others.

Side by side, they stand in front of the house. Their agent is waiting by the front door, a bald man in an extremely elegant coat, and he waves at them from the door.

"Is it _possible_ that it's this easy?" Sansa blurts out, as they stand there. She hears Jon let out a soft laugh.

"We haven't been inside yet," he reminds her, ever the pessimist.

But once they’re inside, it’s _perfect_. There is a tiny little yard in the back, with high walls around it, and it is all too easy to picture the string lights that will light it up in summertime; the chaos of a fourth birthday party; bicycles overturned and discarded in the grass. The agent, a man named Varys, retreats to let them have a moment when they see the upstairs bedrooms. There are three bedrooms, and Jon and Sansa stand in the one that faces the back garden; the one that is absolutely meant to be a nursery.

Sansa does not realize she is crying until Jon looks at her.

"Shit," he mutters, patting his pockets for a tissue and finding none. She wipes at her eyes with a watery laugh.

"Sorry," she chokes. "I'm just happy."

They look around the room, the room that will have a crib (maybe) or a child's bed, soon. They'll paint it yellow, and she can already see Jon holding a child in his arms, late in the night, his hair wild as he soothes their child back to sleep. She covers her mouth with her hand. How is it possible that life is coming together so seamlessly, so perfectly?

"Yeah. Oh, um, by the way." Jon turns to her. "Did you want to get married?"

"We might as well," Sansa agrees, with another wet laugh and a burst of ecstasy as she shrugs. "We could have it here. The wedding, I mean.“

"Yeah, outside, in the garden," Jon agrees. "There should be pictures of it."

This unexpected conviction only serves to remind Sansa of why, exactly, Jon wants a family so very badly. He grew up in foster homes, never having seen pictures of his own parents' wedding, never having had birthday parties of his own. He wants to create what he never had; he wants to give a gift that was never given to him. Her throat tightens.

She wants to give him this; she wants to create this with him.

They're both thoughtful, careful people, so they thank Varys and leave. "It's a lovely house," Sansa gushes to Varys on their way out.

"But it needs a lot of work," Jon hedges over her shoulder. He's already laying the groundwork for their negotiation.

One week later, Jon and Sansa have bought a house together.

**Past - September, 2016**

They get married in September.

After settling on the house in June, they spend the summer renovating the house on their weekends, in between running their separate businesses. Their lives begin to bleed together, until suddenly Sansa realizes she is running from picking up more paint for the nursery, to running to Lemons and Lovelace to accept a new shipment of vintage fascinators, to running to Night's Watch's office in Greenwich to drop off takeaway for Jon as he works through the night with Sam, Pypar, Grenn, and Edd. And Jon has dirt under his fingernails from digging up the flowerbed in the front as he helps to frantically box online orders for Lemons and Lovelace, his mobile between his shoulder and ear as he talks to potential investors. It is a frantic, frenetic, hectic, _wonderful_ time.

On this September day, the air has the crisp hint of autumn, and their little backyard finally looks tidy—they just barely finished it in time—and is currently filled with little rows of folding chairs. An archway twined with roses, courtesy of Margaery's flower shop, is set at the back. Sansa looks out at her wedding guests from the nursery window, where she is getting ready for her wedding. Margaery is curling her hair, and her mother is fussing over the circlet of roses in her hair, and Arya is pacing back and forth, hyperactive and happy, in a blue dress that she picked out herself, matched with her beat-up Chuck Taylors.

Sansa always dreamed of wearing an enormous, cupcake-like dress as a little girl, but this feels different. This is the dream she did not know she had. So she's picked out a vintage cream silk dress, from her own shop, with a fluttering hem and silk-covered buttons up the back, and has a circlet of roses in her hair. The dress hits her mid-calf, showing off her glittering, vintage t-strap shoes. She feels wonderfully like herself, and Arya, her maid of honor, looks wonderfully like herself. This is not the wedding she dreamed of but this is the wedding she wants. Out in the yard, everyone is milling about, drinking cheap champagne from mismatched glasses, laughing and soaking up one of the last warm days of the year, and she is struck by how wonderful and how perfect her life is. Jon is getting dressed in the other bedroom, his bedroom for now, until they have their second child, and she hasn't seen him yet, and she feels a curious fluttering in her belly at the idea of seeing him.

"I'm so happy for you," her mum begins, and she looks like she's about to weep, so Margaery tactfully slips out, claiming she needs a different kind of hairspray.

And suddenly, Sansa is enveloped in hugs from her mother and Arya.

"I'm so happy," she confesses into her mother's hair. There is a commotion as she realizes she is about to cry and ruin her makeup; Margaery comes back with her makeup kit and tissues and this nursery—the nursery that Jon painted the palest yellow, all in one night, as he thought aloud about his plan for Night's Watch—is filled with light and laughter and love.

And suddenly—it feels sudden; the day is slipping away too fast even as Sansa tries desperately to hold onto every perfect moment, catching them and holding onto them like pearls—she is standing at the double-doors to the garden, her arm linked with her father's, and Theon turns on the stereo to play Pachelbel's canon, and Jon, standing beneath the archway of roses, turns to look at her.

This man will be the father of her children. He looks almost afraid to smile and Sansa has to appreciate, once again, how much pain he has endured, and how much courage it must have taken to get him to this moment. This man who hates having attention upon him is now the center of attention; this man who hates ceremony is now standing under an archway of roses and wearing a suit; this man who is so pragmatic and stoic is, as it turns out, just as much of a romantic as she is.

And for a moment she is faced with the truth: she is in love with him, and she has been in love with him for many, many years.

She won't tell him, she resolves, and then her father is gently, gently guiding her along the uneven grass. It's a short walk; the garden is tiny, just as Jon said. It is Sam who is marrying them. Arya is behind Sansa; Robb is behind Jon.

"Do you have your vows, then?" Sam asks brightly. Somewhere in the background, Sam's son lets out a wail—he has lost his stuffed penguin—and everyone laughs.

Jon and Sansa turn to face each other. They picked out rings last week; they are plain silver bands because Jon hates jewelry—yet he won't admit the truth, which is that he has always wanted to be a married man; he has always wanted to be devoted to one person; he has always wanted to wear a wedding band.

"Um," Jon begins, his neck flushing, "Sam, we said no vows, remember?"

"Oh, _fine_ ," Sam sighs, disappointed. "I'll do it for you. But only because you do so much for me." He forces them to join hands. Jon's hands are clammy, and she realizes he is nervous. "Sansa," Sam says, angling his large body toward Sansa. He is beaming at her. "Do you promise to take care of this awkward, overly-emotional potato, no matter how much of a stubborn mule he's being?"

Sansa is laughing, and Jon even lets out a reluctant laugh—Robb and Arya laugh much harder. Theon is in the background, cackling.

"Yes, I do," Sansa says between teary laughs. Sam turns to Jon.

"And Jon," he begins, "do you promise to take care of this gorgeous, stylish, successful, generous, and kind supermodel who is, if we're being honest, an angel that you probably do not deserve?”

"Yes. I do," Jon agrees with a slight eye roll.

"Alright, bands on, then," Sam says, and they clumsily slide the rings onto each other's hands. "And now you may kiss the bride!"

"What—oh, the hell with it," Jon sighs, and then suddenly he's kissing her cheek, only Sansa turns her head at the last moment and his lips brush hers, and everything inside of her comes to life.

This will be one of two times that Jon kisses her in their short marriage.

There are whoops and cheers, and Sansa hears cameras going off— _there will be pictures,_ she thinks, and her heart aches and she's not sure why, and later she will wonder if she knew it was doomed from the start—and then Jon pulls away, his neck still flushed, avoiding her eyes.

The rest of their wedding is more of a party of friends and family than anything else. They unfold card tables that rest uneasily on the grass, and everyone gathers together in clumps to eat a mix of canapes and desserts; everyone is slightly tipsy, and there's so much laughter that at one point, one of their neighbors comes to their door, ready to complain, but sees Sansa's wedding dress and instead wishes them well.

And then, as the sun is beginning to set, and Jon and Sansa are seated beside each other by one of the rose bushes he planted, Robb gets to his feet and wolf-whistles to get everyone's attention. The garden falls silent. Sansa is never more aware of how close Jon is than she is in this moment. She can almost scent his skin, and she longs, yet again, to feel his lips brush against hers. Her mouth still tingles from the way his lips felt when he kissed her; her chin and cheek still tingle with the way his stubble felt against her skin. She thinks, drunkenly, that she would do almost anything to feel that again. But she can never, ever tell him that, so she does nothing.

She watches her older brother turn to them. He's shed his suit jacket and discarded his tie, looking roguishly handsome, and as he raises his bistro glass of cheap champagne, his own wedding ring glints in the faerie lights.

"Toast time,” he calls out, to slight laughter. He clears his throat. "I won't talk long, I promise," he reassures the garden, charming the crowd as effortlessly as always. “Look, I can't think of two people more suited to raise a family together," he says, turning to Jon and Sansa. "You're two of the people I love the most—” to Sansa's surprise, her brother's voice breaks slightly, “—and I'm so happy you found each other." He lifts his glass again. "To Jon and Sansa."

There's clapping, and then mum is weeping again, and Sansa has the vague idea of protesting, of qualifying Robb's statements by reminding everyone that this really is just about the children, that they’re not getting married because they’re in love, but she doesn't want to spoil such a perfect toast. She glances at Jon, and she finds that she cannot read the look on his face.

Hours later, the last guest finally has left, except for Rickon who got a bit too drunk and is passed out, adorably, on the sofa in their otherwise empty living room.

Jon and Sansa stand, side by side, in the doorway to the garden. The grass is torn up from all of the tables and chairs. The only light is from the faerie lights strung overhead. It is nearly three o'clock in the morning. Sansa steps out of her glittering heels and onto the grass, barefoot.

"What're you doing?" comes Jon's soft voice. She goes to the archway of roses, and takes one.

"Going to press it," she explains, turning back to him with this perfect yellow rose in her hand. "One from my bouquet, one from my crown, and one from this. It'll go in the album with the wedding pictures."

Jon has shed his suit jacket and tie, his shirtsleeves pushed up to reveal his lovely forearms.

She is not in love with him. She is not. She is _not_.

"You think of everything," he observes.

"I've been dreaming of this day since I was little," she confesses. "I always planned on havinga wedding album with flowers from the wedding."

She hands Jon the rose and he looks at it, then hands it back to her. His wedding ring catches the light and something within her tightens. "It was perfect," she adds. "So different from what I dreamed of, but still wonderful."

They fall silent for a moment. "Only thing missing was the classic first dance," she adds. She doesn't mean anything by it; she's still a bit tipsy, and exhausted, and just saying what comes into her mind.

"We don't have music," Jon points out. "And I don't dance, anyway."

"Oh, I didn't mean we had to dance. I just was thinking out loud," she dismisses, but he slips his hand into hers.

"This is as far as I'll go," he warns her, pulling her onto the grass. It tickles her bare toes. "One twirl, and that’s it.”

"You're too generous," she teases, as they face each other. She's glad it's dark so he can't see that she's blushing. She stares at him. She has always found him unbearably beautiful. As he takes her hand, she is struck by a distant memory from her adolescence: the first time she got drunk, at a Tyrell party, and she had turned to Jeyne and Myrcella upon seeing Jon make a brief appearance—forced, no doubt, by Robb and Theon.

'Isn't he, like, ridiculously beautiful?' she had called above the music to her friends.

'He’s… definitely cute,' Myrcella had said doubtfully.

'Yeah, I mean, he's not bad,' Jeyne had agreed dubiously. 

'No, he's weirdly beautiful. He's _perfect_ ,' she had insisted. She had thrown up later and forgotten she'd said it at all.

Jon bites his pretty lip. If they end up doing artificial insemination, she hopes their children look like him.

"How does this work—like this?" he asks, taking her hand, and raising it above her head. Giggling and stumbling on the uneven ground, she twirls for him with a flourish, her silk skirt flaring with the motion, and knocks into him.

"Just like that," she reassures him, hastily stumbling back from him. "A wonderful first dance."

"And last dance," he promises her. She knows it's only a reference to just how much he despises dancing, but something about the words fills her with a heavy sadness, a sense of loss as thick as dread.

They turn off the faerie lights, and go back inside. She is sleeping in the master bedroom and Jon is sleeping in the second bedroom, and they tiptoe past a passed-out Rickon and up the stairs together, elbows brushing.

"We'll have to share a bed when the kid comes," Sansa whispers in the blue darkness as they pause in the hall. “To make it normal.” A panel of moonlight streams in through the hall window and turns Jon silver.

"Yeah, you're right," he agrees. She sees him swallow. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

But for a moment their eyes meet and it almost seems like—it almost seems like—it almost seems like he _wants_ her. His eyes look so dark, and so warm, and so gentle. The hall feels too warm, and she is on the precipice of reaching for him. She wants to kiss his throat, she thinks wildly. She wants to rake her hands through his hair; she wants him to grasp her hips and bite her lip and kiss her neck and—

She watches him draw in a breath sharply, and, suddenly, oddly, he turns away from her, and she can hear him let out a shaking breath.

"Good night," he says.

"Night," she whispers, as he slips into the guest room and shuts the door, never looking back at her.

**Past - October, 2016**

One month after their wedding, Sansa and Jon go to their appointment to begin the process of artificial insemination.

It has been another whirlwind month of ovulation kits, of ultrasounds and blood tests, of Jon reading as much on infertility and endometriosis as he can in between work for Night's Watch. Sam figures out a bug in their code and pushes the product forward, and, on a total high, Jon stays up all night reading everything he can on Sansa's condition. He does not give himself a single second to think, because if he does, he will have time to think about how he has caught accidental glimpses of Sansa getting out of the shower, or how her perfume lingers about their house and how he reflexively inhales it and is filled with desire, or how the other week, as they were stripping wallpaper from the living room walls, she had fallen backwards and he'd caught her, and had been so inflamed by the feeling of touching her that—

—He won't think about it.

"You'll want to avoid intercourse for the week before the procedure," their doctor, a portly, pragmatic woman called Dr. Mordane, had told them in advance of today's appointment. Sansa and Jon had explained, once again, their situation, and just as with everyone around them, she had seemed inexplicably skeptical of their words.

"Yes, well, just ensure you avoid intercourse," she had sniffed, ignoring them. "To ensure your sperm count is high."

And now they are on their way to the clinic in Kensington. As always, Sansa is talking too much and Jon cannot bring himself to speak at all. They are going to an appointment where he will masturbate alone in a room with everyone _knowing_ that’s what he is doing, and his sperm will then be injected into Sansa; this entire situation is so surreal and strange and odd and almost intolerably so that he almost wishes he were drunk.

The clinic is down a side street; they walk side by side as Sansa finally falls silent. Their boots crunch through the falling leaves. Jon holds the door open for Sansa. He feels slightly nauseated, and she seems guilty and grateful. He needs to assuage her fears—he does not blame her for this; this is entirely his choice and he _wants_ to do it—but he does not know how, and he feels woefully inadequate as a husband and father-to-be.

The waiting room is pristine and soothing. Pictures of babies line the walls, and the low table at the center of the waiting room is piled with magazines related to parenthood and babies and fertility and women's health. They sit together in the corner of the waiting room, each on the edge of their seats.

"Um, I've never expressly said thank-you for doing this," Sansa suddenly says under her breath, not looking at him. "It just occurred to me how weird this must be for you."

"You don't need to—to thank me," Jon scoffs. Of _course_ Sansa is thanking him for this. It's so typical of her that he almost laughs but he can't quite bring himself to laugh, because this situation is both entirely unfunny and inexplicably hilarious. They are waiting for him to go jerk off, and he can’t stop thinking this.

A cheery nurse with a clipboard leads them into a room and explains the procedure, though they both already know all about it. Jon has obsessively researched the process and everything related to it.

And soon there's nothing left to do but the thing itself.

"Right, I'll just show you to the room. Take all the time you need," she is saying, and Sansa seems to struggle to determine what to say to Jon.

"Good, um, luck," she stammers, lovely face flushing. Jon snorts, rolls his eyes, and turns away from her to follow the nurse to the room where he will ejaculate while Sansa waits for him, and he tries not to laugh as he walks down the hall. This is his choice, this will lead to everything he has ever wanted, but it still feels absurd.

"Like I said, take your time. You'll find everything you need here," the nurse says so helpfully, showing him into the tiny room, and then he's alone.

There are materials provided to _help him along_ , and the idea of it—how many other men have jerked off in this room—is so absurd that Jon is not sure he is ever going to be able to do it. He tries to relax, and flips through the ridiculous, supposedly erotic magazines. There's a screen for him to watch porn if he wants to, but he cannot bear the thought of it. He feels slightly nauseated again. It's been a while since he jerked off; he's been too tired for a long time, between working on the house and keeping Night's Watch afloat and helping Sansa with Lemons and Lovelace's online division.

He sits down and stares at the ceiling. It's all down to him and his ability to do something he’s been doing in private since he was about eleven. This is the whole reason they are here, and they cannot leave until he goes through with this. There is no way out. He has to do this.

He will never, ever admit to anyone what finally makes it happen. It's not the erotic magazines; it's not the porn; it's not thoughts of previous relationships or private, surefire fantasies. When Jon finally leaves that room, he cannot meet Sansa's eyes.

 _Coward,_ he thinks.

After the appointment is finally, finally over, and Jon and Sansa are leaving, there's a light rain falling.

"So, that was incredibly weird," Sansa is suddenly babbling, as she opens up her umbrella, a large yellow umbrella with cat ears. They come together under it. "But I feel good about it. I'm sorry that you had to go through that. It must have been so weird and awkward to do that. I can't imagine, like, just going into a room and being told—“

“—Sansa," Jon interrupts, as they come to a light, and wait for it to change. Beneath the umbrella she looks at him with those lovely eyes. _Coward,_ he thinks again. "Can we not talk about it?"

She retreats, hurt.

"Oh, sorry. Of course. I wouldn't want to talk about it either," she says, flushing.

He feels horrible. This must be traumatic for her, and it must be terrifying—now that he has read everything there is to read on endometriosis, he has a better grasp of all that Sansa has been through—and he's making her feel worse.

So as the light changes and they are allowed to walk, he impulsively takes the umbrella from her and clasps her hand in his. They walk back to the Tube in silence, hand-in-hand.

 _Coward, coward, coward,_ his footfalls seem to say with every strike of his boots upon the sidewalk.


	3. Chapter Three

**Past - November, 2016**

The wait is agonizing. They recover surprisingly quickly from the awkwardness of the appointment, and then each day they are holding their breaths, filled with hope like ever-swelling balloons inside of them. Jon stops letting Sansa carry anything at all—“you are being _ridiculous,_ " she seethes at him one day as they are packing up shipments for Lemons and Lovelace—and every day, Sansa opens up the bathroom cabinet to stare at the lineup of pregnancy tests that she is not supposed to take yet.

"Dr. Mordane said it's too early," he reminds her, every time he catches her. "It's a waste of a test kit."

"I _hate_ you," she informs him, slamming the cabinet shut, and he always just rolls his eyes at her.

But he's as anxious and hopeful as she is. He feels strangely giddy and loose, as though he's drunk. He is lightheaded and lighthearted, and he can hardly focus at work. _Maybe, maybe, maybe..._ He can hardly see a child without feeling a burst of powerful, heady hope. On his way home from work one day, he stops in a children's shop, and impulsively buys a little wooden toy dog. He hides it in a drawer; he does not tell Sansa about it yet. He'll give it to her when— _if, if, if_ he reminds himself so carefully—they find out they're pregnant.

They work on the house some more. They paint the living room a cheery blue, a blue that Jon hates but agrees to after Sansa wields a paint-covered brush at him. They go to secondhand shops. They reupholster chairs and Jon nearly castrates himself with a nail gun, and Sansa curls up on the floor and cries with silent laughter at him as he scowls at her.

And then it happens.

He's at work, furiously trying to figure out what in their code is going wrong. He has been at work for two days straight so he's not seen Sansa, and he is so tired that he feels sick to his stomach. His mobile rings, and he doesn't pick it up until the last ring. Sam and Pyp and Grenn and Edd watch him as he self-consciously slips out of their main conference room, and goes into the dark hallway.

"Yeah?" he greets Sansa. "What's up?"

There is a soft sob, and for a moment he fears the worst.

"I'm pregnant," she whispers.

There is a lump in Jon's throat. "I'm pregnant," she says again, her voice wet. "I'm pregnant."

He puts a hand over his mouth. He doesn't know what to say; he can't say anything. He leans his forehead against the wall and lets out a shaking breath. "Th-there's no guarantee," she reminds him, still crying, "but—but I feel good. I feel like—I feel like—”

“—Yeah," he chokes out. "Yeah. Yeah, definitely."

"We shouldn't tell anyone yet," she begins, "but I already told Arya and Robb."

They laugh together.

"Don't tell your mum and dad yet," he warns her. He's done all the reading, after all. "It's still too early."

"I know, and it would kill mum," Sansa agrees. "So I won't. Even though, oh my god, I want to."

For a moment, they are silent, staying on the line together in breathless wonder. "Anyway," she says, "I just—I just wanted to tell you. I'll let you get back to it. Are you staying the night at the office again?"

"No, I'll be home tonight. I'll pick up something on the way," he promises.

"Alright." He hears her draw in a breath. "L-love you," she says suddenly.

It's a love between friends, of course. It's not the same as a real husband and wife. It's a love of companionship. Of friendship. Of a common goal. It's not romantic love.

 _Coward, coward, coward,_ his pounding heart says.

"Yeah, you too," he says in a raw voice, and he rings off.

When he goes back into the conference room, Sam, Pyp, Edd, and Grenn are all staring at him, and there's an air of mischief about them, like they’re all holding their breaths. "What?" he demands, mopping at his face and trying to hide the boundless, powerful, trembling joy within him.

"CONGRATULATIONS!" Pypar bellows, and Grenn pulls out a case of beer from beneath the table.

"Wh-what?" Jon asks weakly, but Pyp and Grenn are laughing as Sam pulls him into a teary hug.

"It's written all over your face, you dolt," Pypar says, just as Edd says, "you're gonna be a _dad_."

"It-it's not certain," he hedges, but Sam is still sobbing as he clings to Jon in a bear-hug, and Grenn is pushing a beer into his hand.

"You're going to be the best father in the world," Sam weeps. “Oh, I just adore you, Jon.”

**Past - January, 2017**

For two months, they keep it quiet, but every action is filled with glowing, radiant joy. The world has never seemed so beautiful to Jon. Robb and Margaery call to announce they're pregnant—four months in—and Jon and Sansa calmly congratulate them and look online at baby shower gifts together, thinking with identical bursts of joy about how, soon, they will be able to make their own announcement.

And then it happens.

Sansa is sitting at the dining room table, reviewing the shop's online redesign. Jon is trying to fix their sink, which has plagued them since they first moved in. Head under the sink, he is somewhat grateful for the excuse to hide from Sansa. She has seemed irritable all day, citing a headache and a stomachache as the source. They had curry with Arya and Gendry last night and she blames that, and she's been in such an unusually foul mood that Jon is happy to not have to talk to her.

He hears her get up—the abrupt scrape of chair across hardwood floor; they still haven't picked a rug for the dining room—and hears her footfalls. Sansa is private about her bathroom habits, as is Jon, and they deal with this by pretending that that aspect of bodily functions simply doesn't exist, so he works a bit louder in honor of this tacit agreement of privacy. He continues working and forgets about it, cursing loudly and nearly breaking the sink, and nearly an hour later realizes that he has not heard Sansa return.

 _No,_ he thinks, dread settling in the pit of his belly. _No._

Maybe she just has an upset stomach. He extracts himself from the sink, hands covered in grease, and tells himself it's just an upset stomach. He'll just knock on the bathroom door and offer to run to the shop if she needs it, and that otherwise he'll be downstairs, working on the sink. _There's nothing wrong,_ he tells himself. _There's nothing wrong._

His blood pounds in his ears like a war drum as he climbs the stairs. He thinks he might be sick. As he alights the top stair, he hears a soft sob. The bathroom door is ajar. _No, no, no._

 _It's common,_ he tells himself, a lump in his throat as he walks slowly toward the bathroom. He knows all of the statistics. Just because this failed, that doesn't mean anything about their ability to have a child in the future. Plenty of couples go through this. He knew this would be the drill. He knew what they were signing up for.

"Sansa?" he calls softly, as he leans into the bathroom. She is on the toilet, jeans down, elbows on her knees, face in her hands. Tears are seeping through her fingers. He can see at once that her jeans and knickers are stained a red so dark it’s almost black.

He doesn't know what the hell to do. But he has to do _something_ ; they are in this together. He wants to cry, but he won't. He grabs the tissue box on the windowsill and kneels before Sansa, and hands her a wad of tissues. She lifts her face, red and puffy, and accepts the tissues.

"I knew it was likely," she chokes. “I _knew_ it. I just—“

“—Yeah," he says around the lump in his throat. "We'll try again."

Somehow he gets her out of the bathroom. In the master bedroom, the light dull and grey, she strips and changes into pajama pants, her back to him.

And somehow they lay on the bed together, her back to him. He pulls her close, and holds her. They do not speak.

This, he thinks, is the flaw in their plan. This is why romantic love is necessary; because in this moment, there is nothing he can do to comfort her. To embrace her is inadequate; their bodies are unfamiliar to each other. They do not know each other in every way.

 _Coward, coward, coward_ , his heart aches, as he pulls Sansa close.

**Past - September, 2017**

The months go by. They go to that clinic three more times. Jon ejaculates in that horrible room three more times; they leave the clinic, hands clasped together in the rain, three more times. The magnolia tree in front of their house blooms, and then unfurls with glossy dark leaves. Robb and Margaery have their baby, a girl born with a full head of auburn hair, and they name her Lyanna—Jon wanted to have a daughter named Lyanna—and Jon and Sansa are chosen as Lyanna’s godparents.

Their first wedding anniversary passes; three days later, Sansa miscarries again.

They lay together on the floor of the nursery that night, listening to the downpour on the roof.

“I think I’m done,” Sansa says into his chest, her voice raw. Jon swallows over the lump in his throat. He knows his eyes are red.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and he gives up on the idea of a baby with Sansa’s eyes. “I think I’m done too.”

“There’s adoption,” Sansa says wearily. “Maybe we should have started with that. I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have put you through—” she begins to cry again, so he holds her tightly.

“You haven’t put me through anything,” he says into her hair. “Let’s give it a rest, though, before we start.” He cannot admit that he is filled with grief, that he can barely look at children, can barely think of babies right now. He thinks of the wooden dog in the drawer; he has not had a chance to give it to her.

“Yeah.”

And that’s how they begin sleeping together—as in, sharing a bed. They never discuss it, but it is the only way that they can get through that period of darkness, that period of grief, of exhaustion. Each night they cling to each other, and slowly the wounds begin to heal. Snow covers their roses, then sleet.

**Past - May, 2018**

When the magnolia is in bloom again, Jon comes home to find pamphlets on adoption on the dining room table, and Sansa is cooking dinner and singing to herself, and his heart swells with hope.

**Present**

“Have you decided on what you’d like, or d’you need a moment?” the waiter’s voice is blaring, jarring. Sansa watches Jon give the waiter a look so chilling that he slinks off, whimpering something about ‘coming back in a minute,’ and then they are alone again.

“So Robb literally bribed you into going on a date with me,” Sansa observes. “Classy. Makes me feel great about myself.”

Jon turns that chilling gaze on her, and she can practically hear the crackle of frost covering them both. But underneath that frost—does she imagine it?—there is pain.

Between them hangs that final argument, the final moment that made their house of cards collapse, that moment that exposed all of the lies between them. She watches Jon swallow, watches him look away again.

“I didn’t know it was you,” he says coolly.

“But it doesn’t matter,” she points out. “You need that investment money. Or do you hate me so much that you’d be willing to hurt Night’s Watch just to avoid me?”

Her voice cracks; she realizes that that stupid French Seventy-Five has gone to her head and that she is actually slightly drunk. Jon looks back at her sharply.

“ _Hate_ you?” he asks weakly. “How could you possibly—” And then his look hardens, and he’s all ice again. “Whatever. Just pick something. We just need to get through an entree.”

“ _You_ need to get through an entree. I don’t need to do anything,” she snaps. Jon snorts as he opens his menu.

“I’m not an idiot, whatever you might think. I’ll bet anything Margaery bribed you, too.”

(He is right. Margaery has promised that she will divulge a particularly embarrassing story from Sansa’s adolescence to her parents, and Sansa is not entirely confident that she won’t do it.)

They scowl down at their menus. Sansa decides that she’ll order another drink, and when their waiter crawls toward them, shooting looks of terror at Jon, she is surprised that he orders straight gin.

“Do you think they’re watching the restaurant?” Sansa tries to peer out the window, but the glass is conveniently frosted.

“Yeah, they are. I saw Robb’s car on my way here,” Jon says, but he’s looking down at his mobile, scanning emails as usual.

“Oh my _god_.” She puts her head in her hands.

Their drinks come, and they each drink quickly, not looking at each other. This only enhances their waiter’s terror of Jon, particularly when he orders a second gin in a voice that appears to have disemboweled the poor young man. “You cannot handle that. You’re going to be shit-faced. You can’t even handle two _beers_ ,” Sansa points out, as the waiter crawls off with their entree orders.

“I’m well-aware,” he says drily. “That’s sort of the point.”

They are staring at each other, filled with vicious animosity. But she’s always found him especially hot when he’s angry, and she’s drunk, and she cannot forget how it felt to curl up beside him at the end of every long, grief-filled day. She cannot forget the scent of his skin or the feel of his arm slung over her waist, and as they regard each other, the frost briefly melts and she can see that grief again, and it takes everything within her to not reach across the table and take his hands in hers.

It’s her fault, and she knows it, but she cannot possibly begin to apologize for so colossal a mistake; so foul a betrayal. She does not even know where she would start.

**Past - July, 2018**

No one ever told her the adoption process would be so _hard_.

“Right, so it’s a six-month process,” begins their social worker, a somewhat bumbling man named Dontos with a red nose and the look of an alcoholic about him, in his ramshackle office. “We’ll need to get to know you, look over your records and all. Review your application. What are your thoughts?”

Sansa is surprised when Jon speaks first. Her hand is firmly clasped in his; her wedding ring digs uncomfortably into her skin but it’s a good reminder.

“We’re open to a number of situations,” he begins. “We’d like to adopt an infant if possible, but we—”

He is cut off when Dontos chuckles, but the man abruptly stops at the cold look Jon gives him, choking slightly on his laughter. Dontos clears his throat.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just that everyone says that,” he explains, not unkindly.

They leave the adoption office to the July humidity, and take refuge in a Pret a Manger overlooking the Thames. They’re near the Tower of London, and once upon a time, Sansa might have made a comment about how they might soon be taking their child through the Tower of London’s exhibits, but she is still weak with grief, still afraid to hope.

Her linen dress sticks uncomfortably to her back; she is dreading going back home, as their air conditioning is broken.

“So, I feel good about—” she begins, but Jon scoffs.

“He’s an idiot, Sansa,” Jon reasons, finally meeting her eyes. “And an alcoholic. I think we should find someone else.”

Her eyes begin to burn with tears—it took _months_ just to get Dontos—and Jon bites his lip. “I’m sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t sound it, and she briefly hates him.

“You don’t want to adopt,” she accuses quietly. Jon arches his brows at her.

“I said, from the very beginning, that I was willing to adopt,” he counters. “But I don’t want to deal with an idiot, after everything we’ve been through.”

They do not usually reference the many miscarriages. Sansa clenches her teeth, unprepared for this reference to their immense, immeasurable grief.

“You said that just to be nice.” She knows she’s being an arse, but her heart hurts, and she just wants something to work. She hears Jon let out a short scoff.

“You’re being ridiculous,” he says under his breath.

“Let’s just go home,” she retorts bitterly.

The air is heavy; thunderstorms are predicted tonight. The journey home, to when they can get some space from each other, seems interminable, and it’s nearly suppertime by the time they get back to the house but neither of them is hungry. Jon storms off to the kitchen to work on the sink—that ever-present tormentor in their marriage—and Sansa goes up to the bedroom and slams the door, flings herself on the bed, and bursts into tears. After a while, she begins to feel as ridiculous as Jon says she is, so she turns on the light and furiously reads a romance novel, wishing she could run off with a pirate or a knight—anything to get away from Jon, whom she despises with every fiber of her being.

The rain starts, and then the thunder, and then the lightning—and then there is a hostile clap and the power goes out.

“Sansa?”

The door opens. In a flash of lightning that illuminates the room like daylight, she can see he is covered in grease and sweaty. She swallows.

“I’ve got candles,” she says, turning and rummaging through the basket on her side of the bed.

“I’ve got matches,” he offers. The bed dips; he is reaching across to offer her matches, and she turns, and there’s another flash of lightning and the most terrible rumble of thunder that they both gasp and drop what they’re holding, and knock into each other. The scent of his skin is more pronounced in the heat, and there’s sudden dampness between her legs. She is reminded of the fact that her desire for him is a lurking beast, ever waiting at the door of opportunity. He’s kneeling before her on the bed. In another flash of lightning, they are illuminated before one another, just as they are.

“I’m sorry,” they both say in a rush.

It’s a jumble of movement; they reach for each other at once, and then her hands are fisted in his hair and he’s bracing himself on the headboard behind her; they are _kissing,_ his perfect mouth sliding against hers so slowly, so tenderly, so _lovingly_ —

The next clap of thunder comes as a slap; they jerk backward, breathless and horrified.

“Fuck, sorry,” he breathes. “I just—”

“—Never mind; it’s fine. We’re both just—”

“—Yeah.”

He turns from her, back to her as he sits on the edge of their bed. “We can go with Dontos. I’m sorry for being an arse.”

“Me too.”

“You’re not. You have nothing to be sorry for,” Jon says, and she feels herself beginning to cry again. Even when she is cruel to him, he is still generous, he is still giving, and _fuck_ she is so in love with him that it might just kill her.

“Neither do you,” she says in a tremulous voice, instead of all the things she wants to say.

**Present**

By the time their food comes, they’re both drunk, and it’s only seven thirty.

“So,” she begins thickly, “how’s Night’s Watch?”

Jon stares at her.

“Why,” he says slowly, “are you bothering?”

“Are we actually just going to sit here in silence for thirty more minutes?”

“I’d prefer that,” he says, but he doesn’t touch his food, and she doesn’t, either. She lets out a laugh.

“God, you really are a stubborn mule,” she recalls Sam’s words at their wedding, and Jon’s gaze snaps back to her, and she sees the hurt in his eyes again, so quickly hidden beneath ice.

“Funny,” he says shortly, furiously. “So, so funny.”

Abruptly, he gets up. “I’m going to the loo.”

His movement is a little unsteady; he gets drunk _so_ easily. She watches him stalk off toward the loos, and then she is alone, and drunk, with two plates of very expensive French food that neither of them will eat before her, and she wants to cry.

She should apologize.

But how can she even begin to apologize for what she’s done?

**Past - October, 2018**

Dontos was not kidding: the process does take long. It seems like they are waiting forever, their lives punctuated with seemingly endless meetings and interviews. Shortly after their second wedding anniversary, Dontos comes to their house. Jon apologizes for the leaking sink; they watch the portly man make some ominous note on his clipboard, and afterwards they rant, furiously, about it.

“It’s a fucking _sink,_ ” Jon seethes, slamming cabinet doors. “I’ve tried _everything_.”

“How could that _possibly_ have anything to do with what kind of parents we would be?” she agrees in a rage, starting the water boiling for dinner.

Breathless with rage they lay beside each other that night. They are careful to never lay too close to one another; that humid, terrible, lovely July thunderstorm lurks in the air between them.

“It will be okay,” Jon says at last, near midnight. Sansa wants to speak but her lips tremble, so she closes her hand over Jon’s, and feels his wedding band against her palm. Oh, but she loves him, and this lie that they are living suddenly seems unbearable—that they should not simply turn to one another and make love, and forget all their grief, and whisper promises against each other’s skin.

But she can never, ever tell him.

**Present**

Jon does not consider himself a cowardly man but right now he is hiding, because he is drunk, and broken, and humiliated, and breathless with rage and breathless with the most confused pain and love, jumbled up like blood and broken glass, and he cannot bear to look at Sansa anymore.

He’s encountered betrayals, disappointments before. But none of them have ever held a candle to what she did to him, that night so many months ago.

So he hides in the bathroom, and tries to swallow all of the anger, because he has told himself so many times that it’s not worth it. He should have known years ago that he was never going to have a family; it was stupid to get his hopes up. It was so, so stupid—he leans his head against the cool tile, and breathes in deeply. Oh, but it still hurts, it hurts like nothing else—that she could honestly think—that she actually believed—he cannot bear it.

He is drawing in deep breaths, a pathetic attempt to compose himself, when he hears the door to the men’s bathroom open. He swallows and steps back from the wall, preparing himself to hastily look normal, but it is Sansa who steps into the loo.

“Get _out_ ,” he seethes.

**Past - November, 2018**

They have, supposedly, all their ducks in a row. Every day is a waiting game, and they both think they might simply lose their minds soon. One day, Jon is leaving the office, and across the road he sees Alliser Thorne.

“Snow,” Thorne calls across the street. Jon feels a pang of guilt: Thorne should be CEO, not him. In spite of Jon’s personal failures, his work life is going extremely well, and he almost feels like he owes Thorne money.

“Thorne,” Jon says cautiously. He crosses the street; cold rain dots their skin as they shake hands, eyeing each other warily. “How…are things?”

“Good. I got into government,” Thorne replies. The man is older, near retirement. Government makes sense for him. Jon forces a smile. “I hear you got married.”

Jon feels queasy; they still have not heard from Dontos. He feels so guilty about Thorne, even though he has always disliked the man he never wished him ill. Maybe it’s the guilt that spurs him to disclose it:

“Yeah, a couple years ago.” He swallows. “We’re, uh, in the process of adoption. Just waiting for the background checks and all to clear.”

Thorne cocks his head slightly.

“How nice,” he says faintly. “That must be exciting for you. I suppose you’re not that young anymore; adoption’s the only route possible. Still, exciting.” There is nothing genuine about his tone, and Jon remembers just how much he dislikes this man, never mind his guilt.

“Yeah. Anyway, have a good one,” Jon says abruptly, and turns from Thorne with a lump in his throat. This day went from average to terrible and he can’t articulate why. When he gets home, Sansa is making dinner, and there are boxes in the living room—she is redesigning the boxes for the Lemon and Lovelace online shipments—that he knocks over when he opens the door. He can’t stop himself from cursing loudly.

“Sorry,” Sansa calls from the kitchen. She comes out, wearing her yellow-trimmed apron, which is spotted with spaghetti sauce. “Oh, no,” she says when she sees his face. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” he snaps, then feels horrible for it. “Sorry. Let me take off my coat and I’ll help.”

They make supper and Jon’s mood lightens. Sansa’s in a good mood, and they take their wine into the living room and crouch on the carpet, comparing box designs. Jon doesn’t give a damn what the box looks like, but Sansa seems to like it when he gives his input, so he always does his best to seriously consider it. They’re just in the elimination process when Sansa’s mobile rings.

“It’s Dontos,” she mouths to him, and then puts the man on speakerphone. They stare at each other, holding their breath. Jon feels his hands tremble slightly as his heart begins to pound.

“Sansa,” Dontos begins, and his voice sounds sorrowful—why the _fuck_ would it sound sorrowful?—and Jon picks up one of the boxes and bends it so hard the cardboard snaps, startling Sansa enough that she knocks her wine glass. It shatters. “Everything alright?”

“Yes, yes, sorry,” Sansa replies as Jon hastens to the kitchen to grab paper towels. When he returns, he hears Dontos’ voice.

“…Anonymous tip…yes, I’m terribly sorry, but we have to take these seriously.”

Sansa is crying and staring at Jon. “…But a history of child abuse—even suspected child abuse—just cannot be tolerated. I’m so very, very sorry…”

Sansa hangs up, staring at Jon still, her eyes red and her cheeks shining with tears. Jon thinks he might be sick.

“Child abuse?” she breathes. “Jon?”

Across the room they stare at each other in horror as rage abruptly blooms within him.

“ _What_?” he blurts.

“D-dontos said someone c-called, with an anonymous tip…that you—” she begins, and it all comes together: Thorne’s odd smile, the guilt, the memory of Thorne’s face when Sam, Edd, Pyp, and Grenn chose Jon as the new CEO, and the rage blinds him and he abruptly turns and punches the wall so hard that it knocks the plaster in, and Sansa gasps and chokes.

And that’s all it takes: her disbelief, the way she looks at him—like she actually believes it, like she does not automatically side with him. It is a split second that ends everything between them, that razes the ground between them, that sets their entire history ablaze and ruins everything, every good thing.

Breathless, he pulls his hand from the hole in the wall. His hand is throbbing, he is bleeding, and Sansa covers her mouth in horror.

“I would _never_ , and you know it,” Jon says, but she’s still staring at his bleeding hand, at the hole in the wall, and he cannot look at her. She begins to apologize, but it is too late: she looked at him and seriously, truly, for even an _instant_ actually thought he would ever, _could_ ever hurt someone.

That instant is what ends everything, and they can never take it back.

**Present**

“No,” Sansa says. She steps closer and now he’s backed against the wall. “Let me look at your hand.”

“Don’t touch me,” Jon pleads, but then she has closed the distance between them and is taking his right hand—the hand that used to have a wedding ring on it, the hand that he punched through plaster with—into her own hands, and she is breaking him all over again. Her thumb runs over the scars from that night.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, holding his hand so tightly that it almost hurts. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“You actually thought—” he begins, voice strangled, but she is shaking her head.

“No, I didn’t. I was angry, because I realized we had hit another dead end, but I never thought you would ever hurt a child,” she is whispering. “I know you wouldn’t.”

“You looked at me like—”

“—I know, I know,” she breathes, and she’s still holding his hand, and their eyes meet once more. “I was scared, and sad, and angry, and you wouldn’t listen—”

“—You looked at me like you believed it—”

“—But I didn’t!” she yells, and then they realize what they are reduced to, and they look away from each other. “I swear,” she says at last. “I swear I didn’t believe it.”

“Don’t bother lying,” he seethes, and her gaze jerks back to him, and to his shock she is laughing, and crying.

“This is the one thing I’m not lying about,” she admits, covering her face, slim shoulders shaking with laughter and tears.

When she draws her hands from her face, Jon is reminded of that terrible July night, and the way her face had looked when the lightning had illuminated it, and how powerfully he had needed her, and how she had looked at him, almost like—almost like—almost like she had _wanted_ him.

“You lied?” he asks in disbelief, hating how his voice breaks. She nods.

"I'm so sorry, but I did. I lied."

It is time to come clean. They’ve already lost everything; there is no reason to lie anymore.

“Me too,” he admits, at last, at last. But he can’t say the words yet; he cannot tell her yet. The words will not come. It is time to tell the truth and she’s already broken him so why is he still afraid? He is not a coward—but he is, he is, he has been such a fucking coward.

“I always loved you,” she whispers now. He cannot breathe. Their lie is the same, and he thinks of all of those moments: turning to face her in their garden as they became husband and wife; slipping his hand into hers outside of the fertility clinic; reaching for her on that terrible July night.

The words, _me too,_ are barely out of his mouth before they reach for each other, a searing kiss as they stumble backward, breathless and lost. Everything is Sansa: he holds her hair, then her waist, then her arms, as she grips his shirt, and backs him against the wall again. Oh, she is everything, and always has been, and he’s been such a fucking coward, and a fool, and he cannot even comprehend the enormity of his own cowardice and foolishness—that they’ve wasted so long on such a stupid misunderstanding of a single _instant._

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and it is his turn to back her against the wall, feeling wild and lost and frenzied.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he tells her, before kissing the mouth he has always loved once more. Her body is so warm, and he forgot how much he loved the scent of her skin, and he kisses her neck the way he always wanted to—the way he thought of, each time, in that _horrible_ room in the fertility clinic—and listens to her gasp and then he kisses her mouth again. Someone comes into the bathroom and then stumbles back out with a yelp, and they break apart.

There’s a question in her eyes, a question he cannot even believe she thinks she needs to ask. The answer is _yes_ and always has been, of course, from the very moment they locked eyes across the beer garden at Arya’s birthday party, and even before that, years before that. 

“The house is still ours,” Sansa points out. “There’s no furniture—”

“—We don’t need it,” he promises her.

They pay, leaving the cheque for their absolutely bewildered waiter, and hail a cab to the home they almost gave up. The magnolia will be in bloom, soon, and the roses are sopping wet as Jon leads Sansa up the walk, that familiar path, to their home.

“I have the keys,” Sansa says in the darkness, fumbling through her purse. “I couldn’t bring myself to take the key off the ring,” she admits, and then they are stumbling through the front door into the empty, cold house.

For a moment they stare at the living room wall. It has been patched up, of course, in preparation for potential buyers to come through. “Forget it,” Sansa blusters, and she puts him back together again.

“We’ll put a picture over it,” Jon promises, already leading her up the stairs.

They can hear the rain on the roof. It is not to their bedroom that they go, but to the nursery—still painted yellow, and still empty. Maybe not forever, though. They face each other, breathless and wet from the rain. “We might never be able to adopt,” Jon says.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, and then he has to kiss her again, kiss her to make up for all of the times he couldn’t before. “I love you,” she breathes as he pulls her dress over her head.

“I love you,” he confesses, as she pushes his jacket off of him. It falls to the ground, and then they are frantic, kicking off their shoes and tearing clothes in between desperate, frenzied kisses. “I’m sorry there’s no bed,” he says as he pulls her down to the floor. She is bare to him, the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“We don’t need it,” she reassures him, and he lays her down and kneels between her legs and kisses her skin, kisses every freckle, kisses between her legs, kisses her in all the ways he has thought about for so many years. Her hands are twined in his hair and she pulls on his hair when she arches her back and gasps his name. The room does not feel cold anymore, and when he slides inside of her at last, their skin is slick with sweat, their names a heartbeat on each other’s lips.

Afterwards they lay tangled on the floor among their clothing, gasping and dazed and drunk on love.

“We’ll try again,” Jon says, turning to look at her. Her hair is wild and her eyes are bright. Her hand rests on his chest.

“We will,” she agrees. “We’ll try again.”


End file.
